Jacked up!
I haven't felt this jacked up on adrenaline in years as I have been during these past two weeks of production. At first, it's a ton of nervous energy, then comes the exhaustion from the May heat of Mumbai and standing around in small flats with 20 other people (sometimes 30, which is hard to believe given how small these apartments are), and then on hour 10 of Day 5 of 12-hour days, when you think you can't stand straight anymore, you take a deep breath, realize you have 4 more straight days of this without a break, and you feel it. This surge through your body of resolve or will or whatever. Even at the end of an epically exhausting 9-day stretch of 12-hour days, I found myself in bed unable to sleep. I woke up every few hours, completely awake, ready to get back on set and keep going, despite the tremendous physical exhaustion my body must have been feeling.
We shot for 9 straight days in Meera's apartment, knocking out the scenes between Shamita (Meera) and Rudraksh (Bharat) one by one. At first, I felt lost in the machinery of shooting, the ADs calling order, the sound guy yelling "Rolling!," the clap coming in, going out, the ACTION call, the camera placement, everything was overwhelming, except for my conversations with the actors. That was the one place I felt totally at home. The hardest thing to deal with was the heat - Mumbai in May, 20-30 sweaty dudes and gals trapped in a tiny apartment, sometimes the windows covered with heavy black cloth to help us shoot night scenes during the day. It was hard to breathe and you're drenched in sweat. Luckily we had great spot guys who kept delivering us water, coconut water, electrolyte solutions, etc. We started with the scene in which Bharat first visits Meera's apartment. From there on, I kept getting more comfortable with decisions about camera placement and movement. Pankaj, the cinematographer (and later Nuthan) is a terrific collaborator and I was always happy to brainstorm with him, and use his knowledge on visual language. Anyone in the room would soon have developed great respect for acting if they didn't have it already. Shamita, Rudy, and the actor who played Mr. Mishra (Swanand), braved the conditions, and all did an amazing job staying sharp take after take as I tinkered with their performances. Luckily we had all spent a week in rehearsal working out each actor's objectives in each important scene. But it's really hard to be intimate and sweet with someone and pretend there aren't 20 sweaty hairy dudes right there in the room looking on, which is what Shamita and Rudy had to do day after day. And yet every time I yelled Cut! and asked them to do it again whispering little adjustments to them, they were always thrilled to go for another take. That positivity, especially from Shamita, made the shoot fun for everyone involved I think.
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Last night after Day 13 of shooting, I went for a short walk in the building where I'd grown up, to reflect on how amazing it was that this is where I used to play cricket and badminton and make up stories of movies in my head and tell them to my friends, nearly 30 years ago, and now I was here making a real movie. And on this walk I felt nothing. No feelings of nostalgia, no goose bumps, no sweet memories. And I realized that because of the state I was in, am still in, during production, all of my being is devoted to one thing - running this show, directing my actors, making this film that has been inside me for nearly four years. I have no room for anything that isn't in the service of the film. Filmmakers know this. When I'm done, and all has gone well (one hopes!) I will be able to reflect and feel things but not now. I am done shooting 55% of the script. I have 45% still left and a lot of moments to create, people to manage, days to make.
